Can you get there from here? | Trisha Stetzel

What happens when you grow up in a small town, and one day you realize, “If I stay here… is this all there is?”

In Episode 27, Frank Zaccari sits down with Trisha Stetzel, Navy veteran, entrepreneur, coach, bestselling author, and powerhouse community leader, to answer the question so many people silently wrestle with: Can you actually build a bigger life from humble beginnings?

Trisha shares her “coconut shell” journey, from a tiny Texas town (no red light, a graduating class of 167) to becoming a Cryptologic Technician Maintenance (CTM) in the Navy, transitioning into corporate America (including IBM), and eventually making the leap into entrepreneurship, buying her first business in 2007 and building what would become a life of impact, leadership, and service.

Along the way, you’ll hear:

• Why the move from military structure to civilian life can feel disorienting (yes… even “what do I wear?” becomes a challenge)
• The aha moment that pushed her out of corporate and into ownership and freedom
• Why “I can do it myself” is a dangerous five-word trap, especially for veterans and high performers
• How coaching differs from consulting, and why the best breakthroughs happen “in the gap”
• The real power of listening (and what people often say without saying)
• Why visibility is not vanity, and how owning your story becomes a form of leadership
• How she’s helping change the narrative as Chairman of the Houston Regional Veterans Chamber of Commerce, lifting up successful veteran leaders and connecting them to corporate and government opportunities

You’ll also learn how Trisha became the host of the Houston Business Radio Show (including an incredible run of 96 shows in one year) and why her mission centers on creating ripple effects by “serving those who serve others.”

This is a conversation about courage, reinvention, service, and the truth that no matter where you start, you can get there from here.

Guest: Trisha Stetzel
Connect with Trisha:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trisha-stetzel/
• Email: Trisha@teamrxc.com

None of us are in this alone, and the secret to walking on water is knowing where the rocks are.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Have you ever felt stuck in pain, want, or failure? Wondering how to rise when life knocks you down again? Then Bounce Back is for you. So gather your resilience, hold tight to hope, and get ready to reimagine what's possible in your life. So here's your host, Frank Sakari.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Welcome to Bounce Back and Business and Life Podcast. For many of us, we grew up in small towns. We reached a point in that small town where we say, you know, if I stay here, is this all there is? What if I want more? What if there's gotta be something else out there? So what are the options and the alternatives that will give me the opportunity to thrive? Okay, these were some of the questions that were faced by very young, very intelligent, and very ambitious Trisha Stetzel. So let's meet her. Trisha is a Navy veteran. She leveraged her skills she learned in the service. She's now a very, very successful co-owner with her husband Dennis of Results Extreme Business Solutions. And she's going to tell us a little bit more about that. But there's far more than this. She's a best-selling author. She's a host of the business, a Houston business radio show. She did 96, was it Trisha? 96 shows in one year. Now think about how hard that is. Plus, an introductory call before that. But there's still more. She's the chairman of the Houston Regional Veteran Chamber of Commerce, and she volunteers with Faithful Friends Animal Assisted Therapy. And in her spare time, she gets on my show. So not a lot of spare time. Tricia, welcome to Bounce Back in Business and Life.

SPEAKER_03 1:56

Frank, thank you for asking me to come. And you know, is that what it feels like when we introduce people? Because I feel this feels amazing to be on the other side of the microphone today.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

Yeah, you are you do. Tricia, when she introduces someone, it's it's a glowing, it's just amazing how well she does it. So I hope I dig justice for you. You did. All right. Trisha, share, share with the viewers here, the listeners, something about coming from little Texas. How did you get from little Texas to big Texas?

SPEAKER_03 2:31

Oh my goodness. And I know we're going to tackle a lot of the details in between, Frank, but the I'll call it my coconut shell because it's a little bigger than a peanut where I came from and where I am today. So started, grew up in, I'll call it the suburbs of Dallas in a very small town with no red light. We had a grocery store and a fruit stand, I believe, when we moved out there. I was in junior high school in a small town called Red Oak. A couple of thousand people, I believe. My graduating class from high school was 167 people. Pretty small, not super small, but pretty darn small. And I did get a leadership scholarship to a junior college, which was a big darn deal coming from a very small town. While I now the scholarship didn't carry all of the cost for going to school. So I was working three jobs and going to community college. And it was really hard. And that is when I decided I needed to do something else. And so what does one do? We lay on the floor, we open the yellow pages. Yes, I am that old, real yellow pages, and started looking for a recruiter, Frank, of all things. Very shortly after I did that work, I left for the Navy. I spent quite a bit of time in Florida. What my first duty station was in another country as a 19-year-old. That's a big darn deal. And eventually to Hawaii and did my eight years, left the Navy, joined the ranks of corporate America for a global IT company, did my 10 years, and then I discovered entrepreneurship. I bought my first business in 2007. I know, holy cow, I have a business that's going to be 18 or is 18 years old next month. How amazing is that? And that's where everything started to come together for me, Frank. Became a serial entrepreneur. If you don't know what that is, we can have a talk about it. It's not for this show. And eventually, when Dennis was my husband, was ready to leave corporate America, he too fell in love with entrepreneurship more so in the coaching space. So he and I have been running a coaching practice, not full-time, but started in 2015, went full-time in 2018. And here we are, right? That's it. That's my coconut shell.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

And there it is. It's amazing. Now let's step back for a second. When you enlisted in the Navy, there weren't many women in the military at that time. What was that like? You're probably the only woman, right?

SPEAKER_03 5:21

Okay. Almost, Frank. And here's another interesting thing about the job that I was selected for and chose, right? You go do your test and they say, Oh, you scored really well. Here are some opportunities for you. Of course, there are opportunities. I eventually, after I went to school, became a CTM, which is a cryptologic technician maintenance. Not very many women. I was not the only woman. There were a lot of women in the crypto field, but most of them were analysts. I was one of very few. I think there were three women at my first duty station that actually did the maintenance job. So we worked on gear, right? That's that's what we did. I ran fiber cables. I worked in the communications center. Like I did dirty jobs. And it was an interesting place to be, but I didn't feel out of place, Frank. You know, as a young person, I typically socialized with the boys or the men more than I did with the girls or the women. Maybe because I had a lot of male cousins. Maybe I was just used to playing football or riding bikes or, you know, doing all the dirty things that boys do. And it felt natural to me uh to find myself in this space. So believe it or not, in my eight years in the Navy, I was never on a ship. Really? Never on a ship. Yeah. I got to be in an air-conditioned space all eight years. I know everyone feels sorry for me. I have to tell you something funny because it won't come up, I'm sure. That day that I was laying on the floor with those yellow pages, I called an Air Force recruiter first, Frank. And they never called me back. And that is how I ended up in the Navy.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

Missed opportunity by the Air Force. And as an Air Force veteran, I'm embarrassed.

SPEAKER_03 7:27

Oh. Who is that Air Force recruiter? Where is he? We've got to go find him.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

He's probably not doing that anymore. Now you after after the military, we have to I have a lot of veterans on, and uh there's that. You go from very structured world to now I'm going into the civilian world and the corporate life. What was the transition like for you going into that different world?

SPEAKER_03 7:51

Yeah, very interesting and great question. So Dennis was also in the military, and we didn't talk about that. That's how we met. And Dennis got out before I did. So he became a military spouse. For the last two years, I was on active duty, which is very interesting. So I watched some of the things that he was going through in preparation for getting out. Well, the interesting thing is when you're a spouse and a civilian in Hawaii, it's really hard to get work. As a non-islander, that's just it's a problem, right? It's a big problem. So in the beginning, Dennis drove a forklift, and then he eventually found his way into helping an electrician. So he was doing some of the work that he was actually meant to be doing versus driving a forklift. When it was time to get out, Frank, I was in Hawaii, and we knew that I was going to do all of my paperwork and get out in the Chicagoland area. That's where Dennis is from. And by the way, at the time, Texas and Chicago were the only two states that had these extra benefits for veterans or even, you know, active duty getting out. We thought that would be the best place. It seemed like a great place to get a job. Back then, Frank, we didn't have like this internet thing that everybody uses on their phone. So we had an old school computer. We'd get on the computer and see if we could find jobs. And we found this company called Tech Systems. And they love hiring veterans. So we thought, gosh, when we get there, we'll go on an interview and see what happens. Well, it turns out Dennis got back to the states before me, not by much, but by a few weeks. And they invited him in for an interview before I got back. And I'm like, this is supposed to be my job. What's happening here? He went on the job interview and they hired both of us.

SPEAKER_02 10:00

Right.

SPEAKER_03 10:02

So we both got hired by this great company on the same day at the same time at the same salary. By the way, Dennis and I were both CTMs. So we were doing the same job when we were in the military. And so this amazing company put us on our very first contract with IBM.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

Not too bad.

SPEAKER_03 10:22

And we worked for Tech Systems for six months. And then IBM said, we want to hire you six months later. And guess what? Dennis and I got hired on the same day, doing the same job for the same pay. That was our first transition. Now I'm making light of it, Frank. I'm not saying it was easy. It certainly wasn't. It was a very different world moving from knowing exactly what you were doing. Here's the hard one. Knowing exactly what to wear. I had no idea. It sounds like something really silly to those civilians who are listening right now. You didn't know what to wear. Well, just get something out of the closet. Well, if you spent the last eight years, I did. Many spend 20 or 30 years in the military. You know exactly what you're putting on. And then all of a sudden you wake up and you have to make a decision. That's right. In the morning. What am I going to wear today? All of that was super uncomfortable. I don't know if I'm wearing the right thing. I don't know how to act. The language that I used, the military has its own lingo, and so does corporate. I had to learn all of those things. I had no idea what was going on. So I'll tell you the secret sauce. Find the people who are doing great work and follow them.

SPEAKER_01 11:41

Model them. Exactly. That's it. Yeah. Exactly. What uh for the for guys getting out back then when you were suits. So it was pretty simple. But we talked to a lot of the women who weren't in the military. And the and the selection of what to wear became quite an event. So I can uh I understand. And I have two daughters who are in the corporate sector, and that's they're okay. Is this going to be kids? Is this going to work? Is this going to look too professional? Is this not going to look professional enough? All that fun stuff.

SPEAKER_03 12:16

Yeah, exactly. And you know, what exactly does business casual mean?

SPEAKER_01 12:22

Exactly. So you're doing the thing now you're with IBM. IBM's a big, big player. And then there's this disillusionment that I see with a lot of veterans when they get it, because I did the same thing. I got a big corporate job, just like I had a big corporate military. And then it's like, oh man, this is not it. What was that aha moment?

SPEAKER_03 12:45

Oof. There's um, can you tell, little emotion behind that, right? Um just thinking about reflecting on. And the first few years were amazing. I got to do so many things, and I was afforded so many opportunities and put thrust into leadership positions. By the way, that's a whole nother conversation about veterans and being thrust into these leadership positions, doing really well for myself and started managing people, which I was really good at. So I hear. And eventually, Frank, the travel money dried up. We all started working from home because it was less expensive. We were in isolation. I was managing people I had never met. And then the hammer dropped and we started offshoring work. That is when it became real for me. I wanted to be a part of something that I could control, and I wanted to be a part of helping people grow and lead and be better at whatever it was that they wanted to be better at. I always felt like I was in this mentorship role, mentoring people and helping them find their way. And when that started happening, I decided that I was gonna do something on my own. Why in the world would anybody go buy a business and be an entrepreneur? Listen, Frank, when I made the decision, I thought, you know, what is more local than a dog walking business? Pretty darn local, right? I'm gonna I'm gonna hire people in the local community. I'm gonna meet people in my local community, I'm gonna support these people because we always had a we had a dog walker, dog sitter. It was an important job. I thought that'll be easy. Now I didn't want to start it from scratch, so I decided to buy a franchise because of course that's gonna make it so much easier. So much easier. Well, it turns out, Frank, that you still have to do all the hard work. Business development, that's a thing. And a dog walking business is not just about walking dogs. You gotta do the business development work to that. Trans very difficult. It was a whole new world where I had to decide for myself, by myself, to get up every morning and get dressed and go to work in my home office that was 10 steps away from my bedroom. That was a big deal. Like I could have just said, not today or tomorrow, maybe next week. Nope. I put my boots on and I went to work every single day. Sometimes it was in my car and I was doing the uncomfortable things. I had to get out and go talk to people about this new business that I had no idea what I was doing. No one told me what to do. It was a franchise, there was a system, there was a framework. That's great. But I still had to go like talk to real people about something I had no idea about. That was scary, but it was also very freeing and invigorating at the same time.

SPEAKER_01 16:22

I heard you say that, and this tends to be a veteran thing, I'll do it myself. And you said these are the a five-word kiss of death.

SPEAKER_03 16:36

Absolutely true, Frank. And you're right, it is a veteran thing, I think, and I'm sure there are other people that share that same sentiment that are not veterans, but what we learn, or what's ingrained in us in the military, is if someone gives you a mission, you just need to go figure it out. And it needs to get done. You can't come back and say, hey, the person who gave me these orders, this is kind of hard. I don't know if I can really get this done. No, you just go figure it out. And so the kiss of death, I think, whether you're in business or even as a leader, is I can do it myself. Because there are so many people around you that want to be a part of your growth, that want to be a part of your successes, that want to be a part of helping you with whatever it is that you need help with. That lesson, Frank, as you know, because well, it's in a book that you might know about. I had to learn the hard way that you can run yourself into the ground if you try to do everything yourself. Whether you're a solopreneur, an entrepreneur, a leader with a team, you gotta surround yourself with the right people. It can't just be you all the time for so many reasons.

SPEAKER_01 18:01

And you transition really well with your own results extreme business, where you are now that person that people come to when they realize I can't do this. What's that like?

SPEAKER_03 18:18

Frank, this is the most rewarding work that I have ever encountered. Something you need to know about how I found my way to this work. I didn't know I was going to be a coach. I didn't know this work was meant for me. Dennis was actually the one that was pursuing being a coach. He was very interested in business coaching and executive coaching as he was thinking about coming out of corporate America. And I was looking over his shoulder, watching, wondering, like, what is this all about? I didn't really know back in 2015. People have coaches, but what does that really mean? And as he went on that journey, I became more and more interested. And when it really clicked for me is when I realized that the impact in my community would be so much greater if I was serving those who are serving others versus serving one person or one client at a time, which is what I had always done. And I did a lot of things. I didn't just have the dog walking business. Of course, I turned into a serial entrepreneur, as I mentioned earlier, which feels like a dirty word, but it was fun at the time. And once I saw the impact that I could have in my local community, remember this is really important to me, that I could serve those who are serving others. Again, that veteran heart, that servant leadership that a lot of us share. And knowing that the pebble on the pond, being the pebble on the pond, serving that one person who was employing others, there was a ripple effect. Who had a family, there was a ripple effect, who had clients, ripple effect, right? So these ripples were just spreading further and further and further out in the impact that I could have. People who find themselves stuck. I speak their language. Right. It's a fake it till you make it. Well, none of that is true. And sometimes you just need somebody standing next to you, giving you permission to go do the things that you've always wanted to do and help hold you accountable to those things that you've promised yourself. And that's what I get to do. And how much fun is that? And the impact that I have on the people that I work with is amazing. Some of the some of the shifts with people.

SPEAKER_01 21:02

I've heard people describe you, people that we both know in Houston, but it's not just the business do ABCD. It's it's getting the relationship so you understand the person and all those things, all those other ripples, the family and the impact on the family, and something that's going on with their mother who's now aging. And said talk about that. How do you bring because you are so such you're so knowledgeable on the on the business side, but you're so compassionate. How do you tie those together?

SPEAKER_03 21:37

Thank you for asking that, Frank. And it I believe that some people have a gift for being able to connect with people. I believe that if you become a good listener and you truly listen to the person that's sitting across from you, that you can become a very compassionate, loving, Giving person. And I also believe that helping people in business has to be holistic because it's not about the business or the leadership role if you're standing in front of a bigger brand and your personal life. It's about the integration of both. And I don't even like to call it balance because there's no such thing.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 22:22

We know that. If we want to just get down to the simplest skill, Frank, for me, it's listening. Hey, that may sound a little kooky and easy, but if you truly listen and you truly care about what they're saying, you're going to pick up on a lot of things that they're not actually saying.

SPEAKER_01 22:43

Exactly. And sometimes when you just listen, they will find the answer themselves as you listen to them and just say, uh-huh, tell me more.

unknown 22:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:55

Respond on it.

SPEAKER_03 22:57

And that's the beauty of coaching versus I'll just call it consulting, where typically the consultant will come in and say, I've done a diagnostic and here are all the things that need to get done. Where do you want me to start? That's what the consultant would do, right? The coach comes in and says, Well, tell me more about where you are today. Let's spend way more time talking about where you would like to be. And the coaching happens in the gap. How are you going to get there? And it's through those beautiful questions that you just started to give us, right? Tell me more. Or how is that? What will you commit to? Those are the kinds of things that get our brains moving. Like, I don't know about you, Frank. I don't want somebody coming into my business and telling me what to do. I would much rather find the answers myself, but I can't do that most of the time, just sitting all by myself, having that partner to bounce things off of, or simply give me permission to go do the things that I've always wanted to do and hold me accountable to the promises that I made myself is gold. And that's really where the coaching comes in, and why I love doing what I do so much, because I see the light bulb, as you mentioned earlier, that light bulb moment. And the person sitting across from you goes, Oh, what a brilliant idea. Thank you for the idea. And I lean across the table and say it wasn't mine.

SPEAKER_01 24:28

It was there all the time. Now, Trisha, you've ventured now, on top of everything else, into the media world. And you're an author of two books. Both of them are bestsellers. One was with me, and you're the contributing author. And then you did another one called Six Figure Chicks Houston, Volume One. Tell us about that one.

SPEAKER_03 24:52

Oh my gosh. Well, we're gonna circle back to the one I did with you, right? Because I want to talk about that too. That was my first experience, and thank you for allowing me to be a part of that so that I had the confidence going into this project on Six Figure Chicks Houston Volume One. Interestingly, I was introduced to Mel, who is the amazing lady who put these books together and through a BI network. For those of you who are familiar with BI. So I knew a guy who knew a gal who knew Mel, and then we got together and we started talking about it. I'll tell you why I decided to be a part of the book, because it was something bigger than just writing a chapter about my thing. It was the impact that my story would have on younger women and the mentoring program behind the book, which was bringing younger women up so that they could see what you're doing, so they know what's possible. I think that's amazing. It was hard, right? Because she gave us a lot of room. What do you want to write about? I don't know what should I write about. Of course, it needed to be around six figures, because that's the whole idea behind the book. As I started to think about it, right? I had three opportunities to get to six figures. And they were all a part of my story. And so the chapter that I was able to contribute to this book talks about being in corporate and that experience and all of the things that we talked about here today, right? And getting there. And then my first business and the struggle getting there to six figures, and then the next business and where we're at today. And one of the big things that's come out of that, Frank, and you will see more from me this year around this is not being afraid to be visible. I think a lot of us, when I say us, I'm including veterans, and I'm not saying all veterans, but many of us coming up in the military learned that you don't step forward, jump up and down, wave your arms and say, look at me. It's not part of being in the military. When you get inspected, you might get an award because you have uniformed yourself better than everyone else that's there, but you don't step forward, jump up and down, wave your arms and say, look at me. That being visible has shrunk. And then as a woman, same thing, right? When women talk about themselves, I'm again categorizing a lot of us, it's not everyone, but a lot of us, we don't want to come across as braggadocious because then we get looked at as another B-word and no one wants to be your friend, right? So this whole idea of vanity becomes a challenge. So why don't we take visibility and use it strategically and not look at it as vanity? So visibility does not equal vanity. And you're gonna hear more about that. And that's what I'm talking about in 2026 because I think it's really important, just like with six-figure chicks, to tell our story so that we can give those behind us, beside us, around us, an opportunity to see the great work that you're doing. And it doesn't have to be or feel like vanity.

SPEAKER_01 28:17

You're getting into an awful lot of visibility now with your Houston Business Radio show. How did that come about?

SPEAKER_03 28:24

Oh my goodness, Frank. Okay, so this has been a 10-year adventure. 10-year adventure. Had a networking partner. Look how this all comes full circle. Another, another BI person, much younger than I, came over to me one day and said, I want to start a podcast and I want you to be my partner. And I said, Sounds like fun. What's a podcast?

SPEAKER_01 28:55

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 28:56

I had no idea what we were gonna do. So we had another friend who sponsored us, got us all the equipment set up in the conference room, and we would bring local business owners and leaders in to talk about their experience and expertise. What a great way to build content for our local community. Look at that, Frank. Another another way to serve the community, right? Oh my gosh. We did five seasons of that. And if if you do the math, it rolled over 2020. The interesting thing about 2020, it was scary, but also interesting that we had now the capability to talk to people outside of our local community. Wow. We just opened some more doors, more people that we could meet, more networking opportunities, more highlighting of community leaders, not even in our own community, but in their communities. Meanwhile, in 2020, I decided that I needed one more project and I started a solo cast called Serving the Community. I love where that came from. Eventually, the dual podcasts petered out my partner, love him to death, but was getting married, having babies, all of the things, right? But I continued my solo cast. So that's been around since 2020. And I still do that series under the Houston Business Radio show brand, which is tons of fun. I also, by the way, Frank, for your veteran listeners, do a series called Beyond the Uniform, where I talk to my fellow veterans about. And I believe you've been on that show before, Frank. So we'll have to go dig that one out of the archives. You were one of my first on that particular series. I want to tell you a little more about the Houston Business Radio show. So it is part of a bigger brand. I'm associated or affiliated with Business Radio X. Some of your listeners may be familiar. They have studio partners across the United States. I happen to run into these guys. I was invited to a podcast. I was on their podcast and they said, gosh, would you like to be a studio partner? I'm like, gosh, well, what does that look like? And I said, yes. It's been two years since I've been affiliated with them. And the beauty, one, I get to hang out with these guys every week, which is a ton of fun. But the beauty is they're helping me highlight the people that I'm talking to across the United States with their other studio partners. So how cool is it to be affiliated with all of these other studio partners? So my guests get extra voice in and around their experience and expertise. The reason why I said yes to Business Radio X is because they're all about community. They started inside of chambers of commerce, highlighting local owners and they love what they do and they think that everyone deserves to be in the media. And if it's a radio show, a podcast, a YouTube podcast on video, whatever that looks like, they believe that everyone deserves that. And if you're looking for a way to get leads, what a great idea to have people on your show so you can have those conversations and open your networks. You and I were talking about that earlier, right? And meet people that you've never met before. They can introduce you to other people who might need what you have. It's just a really, really good model, and I love it. And it's not going anywhere anytime soon, Frank.

SPEAKER_01 32:24

Good. You're really good at it. Thank you. Now, speaking of chambers of commerce, on top of everything else you're doing, you decided I'm going to become the chairman of the Eastern Region Veterans Chamber of Commerce. Now you were always a member, that's where we met. Were you finding the time to step up to be the chair of this?

SPEAKER_03 32:44

Gosh, Frank, I think somebody twisted my arm at a board meeting. I'm kidding, kidding. Listen, I'm really passionate about this space, as as are you, and and how we met in the first place. So Dave Weaver and John Cackley started this five years ago. And almost, we're almost at five years. And I got introduced to them through da da da da somebody I knew in B and I. And it was actually one of their spouses introduced me. It was John's wife and said, Hey, these guys are starting this thing. Would you be interested? And I went to a couple of their behind-the-scenes meetings. I'm like, I'm in. And I drugged Dennison, kicking and screaming. Remember, we're always doing things together to help ourselves. We were members number five and six into that chamber. And I believe in the mission, Frank, which is why I decided to raise my hand and say yes to being the chairman. I'm actually, I think I'm in my second term because we're rolling into our second year. Let me tell you a little bit about the mission or tell your listeners a little bit about the mission. At a very granular level, most veterans, I'm going to go back to the visibility thing. Most veterans do not jump up and down and wave their arms and say, I'm a veteran and I'm a leader and I opened a business or I stand as a leader in this big brand. We don't. We just don't. It's it's not part of something that we do. It's not because we're embarrassed. We love that we served. We just don't talk about it. Because it's ingrained in us that we don't do those things, right? So, Frank, you might be surprised that I never told anyone that I was a veteran from the time that I got out in this is gonna age me now. Everyone's gonna know how old I am because I said how old I was earlier. From 1999 until 2021, I didn't tell anybody I was a veteran through all the businesses that I had owned, through all of the things that I had ever done. Some people knew that I was a veteran, but it wasn't something that I talked about, right? Until I joined the chamber. And I found my group, I found my guys, I found my uh whatever you want to call it, your platoon, right? It was something that was missing for me. And we're all the same, right? None of us were talking about being veterans. We had owned businesses for years. So the mission at its very granular level is to find veterans who are amazing leaders and business owners to be a part of what we're doing, which is raise up the idea that veterans are successful and get rid of the stigma, particularly in the greater Houston area, not everywhere, but in the greater Houston area, the stigma when you say veteran is most people say, oh. And that, oh, bless your heart, means they're thinking of someone looking for something. There are a lot of organizations that help veterans. You guys don't get me wrong here. And Frank, I'm on my soapbox. There are a lot of organizations that help veterans in need. A lot of them. And I want those veterans to get what they need. That's not my mission. My mission is to lift up those veterans who are successful, have them talk about being a veteran so that we can bring more of them out to talk about their successes. Some people who are listening probably don't have a clue that Walmart was founded by a veteran. Did you guys know that Walt Disney was a veteran? And I could go on and on and on, but no one talks about it. And the mission, my mission is to get people to talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 36:25

The thing that's uh unique about this chamber, when I was researching the book we did, there are 45,000 nonprofits giving the veterans. 45,000. Okay. They're all good people. But what you do differently is you take the veteran side and you go to the corporate side, the government side, and say, look, corporate side, government side, you need to be working with these people. Here's what they do, here's what they bring to the party. And we were there in Houston one time and I did a talk with a group in the end. I said, the example of Rice University graduate, specialist, whatever, from the military, four years, right? Four years at rice, four years in the military. Where are you leaning? And I said, Well, I get the kid from rice. I said, Why is that? And so we went to rice number one. And I said, What did this person accomplish other than getting through rice? Did they have a job? Do they show up every day? Were they responsible? Do they find ways around things? And are they going to stay with you more than two years because the odds are they won't the other side? The specialist, whatever, level to get up every morning and be responsible, responsible for millions of dollars of government had people's lives that they were responsible for. Found ways around things, right? Because nobody has the answers to everything, but a veteran will find a way around it. Why would you not hire that person? And the answer was, well, we never thought about that. And he said, Well, we better think about it. And that's what you do. And you're the only ones, and the research I did in that book, it's the only organization that does that.

SPEAKER_03 38:13

So absolutely. And we have to advocate for supporting veterans. And Frank, there are even organizations out there that want to support veterans and they don't know how, and they can't tell you how many veterans they employ. They don't know, but they want to. And so we need to get out there and advocate for these amazing veterans into these bigger companies and for these veterans that are starting businesses and need mentorship and want to grow and get better and be looked at as some of the leaders in their industry. And here's the last thing we got to teach veterans to buy better veteran services because sometimes we forget because we're not talking about it, right? I'm a veteran. Am I searching for veteran services? No, I'm just gonna go down the street to the thing because it's a lot easier when I really should be supporting another veteran in business, right?

SPEAKER_01 39:13

Exactly. Exactly. What makes you the most proud?

SPEAKER_03 39:22

Being a mom.

SPEAKER_01 39:24

Being a mom. That's good.

SPEAKER_03 39:25

Being a mom. Yeah. Frank. Wow. Thanks for evoking that. There's a little emotion behind that. One thing that I didn't mention is that not only am I a wife of a veteran, but I'm also a mother of a veteran and a daughter of a veteran. And our son served proudly in the U.S. Coast Guard for six years before he came home and graduated from Houston and now has an amazing job and does whatever he wants. Yeah, being a mom, Frank. Thanks.

SPEAKER_01 39:59

That's that's terrific. I love that. Someone asked me that one time. I said, Well, I was a single dad. I had two daughters, I still have two daughters, but I uh that's what I said was being a single dad for my two daughters. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 40:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:14

All right, how do people get a hold of you, Trisha?

SPEAKER_03 40:16

So listen, if they want to learn more about me, LinkedIn is a great place for them to go. They can find my handle. It's Trisha-Stetzel S T-R-I-S-H-A-S-T-E-T-Z-E-L on LinkedIn. Or they can reach out to me directly at Trisha at teamrx.com. So it's T-R-I-S-H-A at T-E-A-M-R-X-C.com.

SPEAKER_01 40:50

And we'll put that in the uh notes when this comes out so everybody can find you. As I said, we're just about out of time. I want to thank my my my guest and my friend Trisha Stetzel for sharing that regardless of how humble your beginnings were, you can get there from here. You can get to where you want to go. Let me leave you all with this. None of us are in this alone. And the secret to walking on water is to know where the rocks are. Today, Trisha showed us where many of those rocks are. And together in this podcast, we're going to find more of those rocks where we're going to bounce back better than ever. If you enjoyed this, share it with a friend. Please subscribe. I'll see you next week. Again, Trisha, thank you so much. Thank you, Frank.

SPEAKER_00 41:33

So that's it for today's episode of Bounce Back. Head on over to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen and subscribe to the show. One lucky listener every single week who posts a review on Apple Podcasts or iTunes will win a chance the grand prize drawing to win a ten thousand dollar private VIP day with Frank himself. Be sure to head on over to bouncebackpodcast.com and pick up a free copy of Frank's gift. And join us on the next episode.